''Spinning Into Butter'' is a 2007 drama film written by

Rebecca Gilman Rebecca Gilman (born 1965 in Birmingham, Alabama) is an American playwright. Education She attended Middlebury College, graduated from Birmingham-Southern College, and earned a Master of Fine Arts from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop at the Univers ...

and Doug Atchison and loosely based on Gilman's

play of the same name Play most commonly refers to: * Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment * Play (theatre), a work of drama Play may refer also to: Computers and technology * Google Play, a digital content service * Play Framework, a Java framework * Pla ...

. It was directed by first-time director

Mark Brokaw Mark Brokaw is an American theatre director. He won the Drama Desk Award, Obie Award and Lucille Lortel Award as Outstanding Director of a Play for ''How I Learned to Drive''. Life and career Brokaw was raised in Aledo, Illinois, and graduated fr ...

and produced by

Sarah Jessica Parker Sarah Jessica Parker (born March 25, 1965) is an American actress and television producer. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including six Golden Globe Awards and two Primetime Emmy Awards. ''Time'' magazine named her one of the 1 ...

, who also stars in the film. ''Spinning Into Butter'' was sold for distribution

Cannes Film Market Cannes ( , , ; oc, Canas) is a city located on the French Riviera. It is a commune located in the Alpes-Maritimes department, and host city of the annual Cannes Film Festival, Midem, and Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The ci ...

on May 17, 2007 and opened in the U.S. in March, 2009. The film concerns

political correctness ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...

and

racial identity A race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 1500s, when it was used to refer to groups of variou ...

Premise

When a New England

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capac ...

experiences a

hate crime A hate crime (also known as a bias-motivated crime or bias crime) is a prejudice-motivated crime which occurs when a perpetrator targets a victim because of their membership (or perceived membership) of a certain social group or racial demograph ...

against one of its few black students, the school's

dean of students Dean is a title employed in academic administrations such as colleges or universities for a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, over a specific area of concern, or both. In the United States and Canada, deans are usua ...

(Parker) must respond publicly to the incident while privately confronting her own latent

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...

and

prejudice Prejudice can be an affective feeling towards a person based on their perceived group membership. The word is often used to refer to a preconceived (usually unfavourable) evaluation or classification of another person based on that person's per ...

Cast

as Sarah Daniels * Miranda Richardson as Catherine Kenney *

Beau Bridges Lloyd Vernet "Beau" Bridges III (born December 9, 1941) is an American actor and director. He is a three-time Emmy, two-time Golden Globe and one-time Grammy Award winner, as well as a two-time Screen Actors Guild Award nominee. Bridges was a ...

as Burton Strauss * Paul James as Simon Brick *

Mykelti Williamson Mykelti Williamson (born March 4, 1957) is an American actor best known for his roles in the films ''Forrest Gump'', ''Con Air'' and ''Ali'', and the television shows ''Boomtown'', '' 24'', and '' Justified''. In 2016, he portrayed Gabriel Maxso ...

as Aaron Carmicheal *

Victor Rasuk Victor Rasuk (born January 15, 1984) is an American actor. Early life Rasuk was born in New York City, to Dominican parents. His mother worked as a seamstress, and his father at an auto shop. He has one brother, actor Silvestre Rasuk, with whom ...

as Patrick Chibas *

Betsy Beutler Betsy Beutler is an American actress. She is known for her role as Katie Collins on the NBC/ABC series '' Scrubs'' (2009), the related webisode series '' Scrubs: Interns'' (2009), and her roles in ''The Black Donnellys'' (2007), ''Legit'' (2014) ...

as Lee

Reception

As of March 2018, the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported that 16% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 32 reviews with an average score of 3.6/10. The site's consensus of reviews was: :"Both leaden and stilted, ''Spinning Into Butter'' is an unsubtle drama with stagy direction and lackluster dialogue."

References

External links

* 2007 films 2007 drama films Films about race and ethnicity American drama films Political correctness Films set in Vermont 2007 directorial debut films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{2000s-drama-film-stub